By popular demand, new date (January 17) just added for the deep dive Downtown Los Angeles architecture, history and hidden places tour, featuring the captivating Arts & Crafts tile landmark Dutch Chocolate Shop! esotouric.com/event/know-y...

Did Raymond Chandler's house in Pacific Palisades survive the Palisades Fire? Almost nothing in this neighborhood did. Paying our respects with a big lump in the throat. The alphabet streets were a beautiful part of Los Angeles.

Happy birthday, sweet Elmer McCurdy. You might have been happier if you made it to Los Angeles on your own steam, but it worked out in the end.

Happy New Year from Leo and Esotouric. Hope you have someone sweet to cuddle with when the yarn ball drops!

Investors are buying close to half the empty lots in LA burn zones, report says. laist.com/news/housing...

Pershing Square Restoration Society blog updated with audio from a May 2022 Rec and Parks Commission hearing. Q: Where did Jose Huizar's Pershing Square Renew funds go? A: Nobody knows--but obviously not to improving the oldest park in Los Angeles. restorepershingsquare.blogspot.com/2022/06/pers...

A treat on our Miracle Mile tour: we went into Johnie's (Armét and Davis, 1956)! The landmark is now Bernie's Coffee Shop, a mutual aid and organizing hub doing great work to serve the community. One day we hope the grill will fire up again. Learn more at linktr.ee/berniescoffe...

Eleven years ago tonight, we captured the Hollywood Downtowner Inn and Harvard House neon motel blades--lovely things, both still here! But that gorgeous piebald stone wall was just whitewashed by Covenant House, using taxpayer funds. Please don't screw the sign up, too!

Upsetting news from the foot of Angels Flight Railway, where dedicated Saturday station agent Will Campbell's drive-by light bulb and tagging check was disrupted by a hit and run driver. Will's truck is totaled, but he's okay. Slow down, people! www.instagram.com/p/DSz-s9NlKv...

Moody scene at the oldest continuously operating hotel in Los Angeles, where we'll soon be talking about the Skid Row Slasher terror spree.

Today: Human Sacrifice is not like any true crime story you've heard before. With respect for the victims, we seek to reveal public policy failures that made them vulnerable to heinous acts. It's about housing, mental illness, gentrification, greed... and hope. esotouric.com/event/human-...

A little motion picture magic has spruced up the exterior signs at Lucy's El Adobe Cafe and Patricia Casado is working hard to reopen her parents' legendary restaurant in the new year! Do you have a dish you miss?

We recently spotted something really cool hiding in plain sight on the north side of the long empty Hotel Clark at 4th & Hill Streets. Friends, we give you: Sherman's Ghost!

Just announced: Cole's French Dip is NOT closing on New Years Eve after all. Don't be cranky about the many "closing soon" announcements: an operating legacy business is a lot easier to sell than a shuttered one. We're hoping an angel is listening. Save Cole's! esotouric.substack.com/coles

Join us tomorrow for a different kind of true crime tour. Human Sacrifice honors souls who fall through the cracks of corruption and housing insecurity. Get to know the real people in the Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck and Skid Row Slasher cases. esotouric.com/event/human-...

Hopeful Hollywood Center Motel news: After the CHC hearing on December 4, we spoke with the property owner’s representative about our concerns about security at the potential landmark and asked that they seek a vacate order to give LAPD the authority to remove any squatters or vandals found on site.

If you know anything about L.A.'s lost Victorian neighborhood of Bunker Hill, this AI slop "reconstruction"-- which has nearly 50,000 views--will make you want to gouge your eyes out. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXIy... Read Nathan Marsak's books instead! www.amazon.com/shop/esotour...

On January 7, tune in for a free virtual presentation from Hollywood Heritage on The Hollywood Center Motel: A Case for Preservation. www.hollywoodheritage.org/event-detail...

East Los Angeles Christmas Day storm watch: the Brewer's Blackbirds are in heaven with their brand new rain pool.

This LAX Theme Building / golden arches graphic is a thrift shop mystery item donated to the Route 66 McDonald's Museum in San Bernardino. Corporate junket swag? archive.org/details/mc-d... Our interview with museum founder Albert Okura (RIP) esotouric.com/canteatsunsh...

Esotouric's holiday message for Los Angeles... with a cameo from the kitten we found running on a freeway overpass and rescued earlier this month esotouric.substack.com/p/holiday2025 On this wet and blustery Christmas Eve, we’re wishing you...

We appreciate Larry Harnisch taking time away from his life/work to comment on yet another screwy Black Dahlia theory. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg21... We wonder if this one conflates men using similar names. And it looks like the Zodiac Motel functioned as workforce housing, not transient lodging.

Brr! Don't go out in that blustery storm to shop. If you still need a hostess gift or something for your sweetheart's stocking, we've got digital/printable gift certificates for walking tours into the secret heart of Los Angeles. esotouric.com/giftcertific...

Several years ago, we got into a shouting match with the Hotel Cecil leaseholder who had illegally replaced the protected wall sign with a Postmates ad. This fight led to Rev. Dylan Littlefield starting his beautiful ministry, as Jennifer Swann reports www.kcrw.com/shows/kcrw-r...

It was the sweetest holiday gift when we rescued a tiny kitten running all alone on an overpass in East L.A. He's named Leo, after the artist Politi and the MGM lion, and his screwy antics are a hoot. Hope you get something just as dear in your stocking this year!

Some say "luxury" and some say "washing machines." The result is the same: it's not housing for Angelenos, it's a speculative debt vehicle, and when it inevitably crashes, those who profit walk away licking their chops. commercialobserver.com/2025/12/witf...

Historic Los Angeles walking tour gift certificates are on sale through Christmas day, just the thing for curious Angelenos who want to dig deeper and begin to understand this confounding, magnificent, beautiful and broken town that we love so much. esotouric.com/giftcertific...

Happy holidays from the monument to preservationist City Planner Calvin Hamilton--who went a little nuts and tried to start a tour company using City Hall resources--councilman John Ferraro, developer Jerry Snyder and Miracle Mile department store shoppers past.

4940 W 20th St. was a 99 year old Tudor storybook charmer, the kind of house Angelenos dream of making their forever home. We hoped it might be saved and moved to Altadena...

Today on the Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness tour, get the scoop on Johnie's, a landmark Googie diner reinvented to be of even greater service to Angelenos (sans hash browns), plus weird tales, gorgeous buildings, tar pit legends. And it starts at noon! esotouric.com/event/miracl...

Happening now at Beyond Baroque and streaming on YouTube: East of Western Closing: L.A. Poets Read Charles Bukowski. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZSF...

Sorry, urban explorers: no room on today's Know Your Downtown L.A. walk with the Dutch Chocolate Shop, Bradbury Building and basements of yore. We'll do this one again in the new year. But you can still sign up for Sunday's Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness! esotouric.com/event/miracl...

A thoughtful piece on the likely sale of the quasi-public Stahl House at a billionaire's price, and the lack of institutions prepared to keep L.A.'s best modernist houses open to all. LACMA's board should have funded an architectural endowment long ago. www.dwell.com/article/stah...

ICYMI: we attempted to livestream the 12/4 Cultural Heritage Commission hearing about the Hollywood Center Motel, plus our Richard Schave's public comment about French Hospital, an 1860s landmark with modern additions, now being demolished with no review. esotouric.substack.com/p/cultural-h...

On a rare Sunday tour, Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness, you'll learn what's up at the Googie time capsule Johnie's Coffee Shop across from the May Co. / Academy Museum. New ideas and old buildings go together like eggs over easy and sourdough toast. esotouric.com/event/miracl...

The Esotouric elves are busily prepping gift certificates for L.A. lovers' stockings, and if you're attending one of this weekend's walking tours, we can hand deliver them with a Raymond Chandler map or other printed matter from the souvenir shop. esotouric.com/giftcertific...

Tune in to Kate de Los Santos' podcast The Bombshell Effect about Cole's French Dip as its long threatened, oft extended closing date comes into view. Our Kim Cooper agrees a place this packed with early L.A. ghosts should not be allowed to die. www.bombshelleffect.com

Almost sold out! Amaze your sweetheart when you snag the last two tickets on Saturday's Know Your Downtown Los Angeles tour, featuring the Dutch Chocolate Shop. Spots are still available on Sunday's Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness walk. www.esotouric.com

Judson Studios just announced public tours of their historic stained glass production studios (est. 1897) and the dates are filling up quick. www.judsonstudios.com/events

All are welcome to attend the 4th annual Christmas Eve noon Mass in the mezzanine at the Hotel Cecil. Donations to the tenant gift bag fund are welcome and if you can sing, Rev. Dylan Littlefield is assembling a choir. achaplainslife.substack.com/p/its-beginn...

2026 is a big centennial year for Los Angeles landmarks, but at Heritage Square, they're gearing up to honor the Perry Mansion as she turns an august 150! They're looking for some L.A. angels to help refresh the old gal, so if that's you, click here: www.heritagesquare.org/donate

Just added to our private walking tour options: the new Hollywood Noir, a wild web of civic reform, mobbed up politicians, black magic, avant garde architecture, sleazy motels and Spanish mansions, Double Indemnity, Beth Short and the cinema censors. esotouric.com/giftcertific...

Los Angeles City Council files motions as performance art, never get reports back, then they die. John Lee, facing huge ethics fines, was second on this one to protect RSO hotels from demo and illegal Airbnbs. A joke! cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkc...

Whoa! There's activity at the recently shuttered Mayan Theater: on the Instagram story for www.instagram.com/triumph_coat... watch old mastic carpet glue buffed off the concrete floor. Could the new operator be Insomniac? Our archeological explorations within: esotouric.substack.com/mayan

As the motion to give the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission stable funding expires without action cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkc... here's our public comment asking

Just three tours left this year--unless you want us all to yourself on a private walk into the secret heart of Los Angeles. 12/20 - Know Your Downtown LA 12/21 - Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness 12/27 - Human Sacrifice Downtown L.A. true crimes www.esotouric.com

If your gifting list is stressing you out, why not let us show your pals around the secret heart of the city we love with an Esotouric walking tour? The five for the price of four holiday sale is on now, and you can use the free ticket yourself! esotouric.com/giftcertific...

Who took the W.P. Story Building gates? Do they still exist in some rich collector's hands, or were they melted down for scrap? If anyone knows, speak now!

So there we were, leading a tour group through the redevelopment ruins of Main Street, lamenting all the quirky/sleazy small business run off by City Hall prudes, when we came upon @isiahdoesthis at @shopandprop. So great to see vacant #DTLA storefronts come alive again! youtu.be/IM3rt9sjSXg

It's Christmas time at Grand Central Market, and the neon glows just a little warmer, it seems. Wishing (almost) all Angelenos a Joyeux Noël.